Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
it's a fact!
i was going to pen a story about how mean several people have been today, but instead i am going to tell a rev can story with a happy ending. that’s right folks – it’s a story about revenue canada and it doesn’t end with an audit.
the last few days i have been fretting about making a contribution to an rsp this year (for those of you in the US – this is a retirement savings program like a 401 K that gets tax breaks on it). yeah – i know – i must be rich to even be considering such a thing. i have never before put money in anything except for a simple bank account. the main reason i have been thinking about this is because when i get my retroactive pay on the collective agreement, i want to put it straight into an rsp and thus avoid being taxed at 55% on that money – then at least it will work to my advantage come tax-time next year.
(who ever thought that *i* would be blogging about such mundanity….)
those of you who care about such things will know that rsp-deadline for this tax year is march 1st, but since i’m going away at the end of next week, i needed to get this wrapped up. so i decided to login to the rev can website and access my tax info from years past (to see what my contribution limit was up to). what i thought was my login info just wasn’t working, so i called their help desk.
i didn’t even have to wait on hold! and the guy who answered told me that i would find my login info on last year’s assessment record – to which i said “actually, since i started e-filing 4 years ago – i have not ever received any assessment records in the mail – can you look up why that would be?”
it turns out that since 1999, they have not had a current address for me on file – even though i work for the federal government, and even though i have filled out my new address on the e-file every year for the past three years. apparently i did not fill out a change of address form (i mean – c’mon – how stupid is that?)
he and i walked through the address updating steps together – but the real upshot of this is that they have been getting my mail bounced back to them for the past several years including over $800 in refund cheques. that’s like free money! or something.
besides all of that, the guy on the phone was really very helpful, and also quite pleasant. yup – it’s a fact – a revenue canada story that doesn’t suck.
gung hay fat choy
phew – glad that is over… the birthday, the new moon – and now for a new (lunar) year….
after i left work last night i headed straight home which was probably the best decision… i thought once i got there i would just mope around all night, but in fact, the really bitter sadness stoped flowing somewhere around the lion’s gate bridge and after watching a beautiful sunset (and recognizing that the longer days mean that soon i will be commuting entirely in the light rather than entirely in the december dark) – i went to the grocery and got decadentally unhealthy food (perogies – yum)…..
i spent the evening after dinner in reflection and meditation – being that a birthday falling on the new lunar year is supposed to have some mystic strength, i thought i would try to take spiritual advantage of the timing. making time to do this regularly is something i think would help with my internal balance immeasurably, as i have found that just doing breath focusing daily really does help keep things level – meditation can only add to that. while i psych myself out of it often by building up how difficult it is for me to tone down my thinking process, when i actually get down to making the time, i find i am able to meditate for much longer periods than i ever could in my younger years. maybe this is a benefit of getting older…..
somewhere in all of that evening activity – i also managed to have good phone time with friends on the prairies (sharai in regina and bear in winnipeg)…. two people i haven’t spoken to in awhile and was quite happy to hear from.
so where did all that sadness come from in the first place? this is the part that i hate to admit (because i am so damned fiercely independent), but occasionally i get sad about being alone in the partnership sense. of course i have lovers, many friends, and lots to do in my life – which means i am rarely lonely – but there are times i become frightened about the fluidity of it all, and long for an anchor in the form of the “someone who is always there for me” that is apparently available in partnership or marriage.
when examining this question honestly, however, i do not believe that a partnership would be the thing to make me happiest – but it becomes something to fixate on (as in “the one thing that could make my life better”), an easy psychological hook on which to hang my sadness, my anxieties and my fears when they get uppity and start knocking on the cognitive door. my reality is, no partnership has ever taken care of my emotional or physical needs – but i have drained a lot of my own energy in relationships trying to attend to the emotional and physical needs of my partners.
three years ago, my last partnership ended between february 8th and march 8th (yup – the process started with my birthday and ended with his, which is why the dates are so fixed in my mind). our relationship was fraught with difficulty, due to our lives as activists, the number of days we spent in courtrooms and under surveillance, and our own personal baggage. i loved that man as much as i could ever love anyone, and there was a lot of heartbreak between us at the end.
but even as much as i loved him, and still maintain a close friendship, i know in my heart that i would never want that relationship back – and when it ended, it was because we both knew it had to. because really, true love does not conquer all, and very few partnerships or marriages are forever – this is something that i’m quite clear on…. i think it is just a foil for which to obsess over when i get a bit low.
so yes, perspective. things here are fine again.
word of the day
the word of the day was “string” (remember, 60 seconds, no thinking):
string me along, to break my heart, you are a fickle lover, not much of a friend – how i wish – how i wish i was not so strung, not so stung, not so out on a line for you – out on a line for someone not me. string me along no more lover, this is done.
train wreck
i have not been able to stop crying all day (well, except when i’ve been in work meetings, i managed to stay on top of it then) – no kidding – it’s my birthday and it seems like as much as i have tried to have a good day, the universe has conspired against me.
i was feeling good up until yesterday and then everything just ground to a halt. i’m sure it’s just hormones and birthday combined… i’ll be right as rain in no time.
but at the moment, i’m as miserable as i’ve been in a long time – it’s probably a good thing that i’m spending my birthday alone.
okay, i like this
here’s the drill – you get one word, and 60 seconds to write about it – no thinking allowed
the reason i like this? brings back fond memories of the only class i ever enjoyed in high school – creative writing – where our teacher, the crushable terence young, would ask us at the beginning of each class to write stream of consciousness about a word, a phrase, a snippet of a song or poem, an image – for some allotted period of time (5 minutes – more?) .
i still do this from time to time – though i think to go back to be a halfway decent writer – i would have to do it every day again – and i am poor with self-imposed disciplines like this (though i manage to blog most days – so who knows).
when i first reconnected with my friend dustin, who is now in the 8th year of a 12-life sentence for 2nd degree murder, and who is also now a writer of pretty amazing prose and some poetry – he told me it was that class, and specifically me, that made him want to become a writer 14 years ago…. in one of his letters, he recounted a story of coming into writing class late one day, where i stood reading something (a something he has no memory of) outloud. whatever the piece, it moved him so much that he left the room that day wanting to be able to also move people the way i had him.
he was expelled from the school shortly after that (drugs? fighting? i’m not sure now)…. and i didn’t see him again until we re-met this summer by letter.
anyhow – that stream of consciousness writing – was always my favourite exercise. when you stop the rigid thinking process and just allow words and feeling to *flow* – it’s interesting (and sometimes disturbing) what becomes in that space.
(thanks to seeking clarity for the first link – it was her blog i found this exercise on)
Red Cedar 